1 month ago
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Glebe residents are fearing traffic chaos when the new Sydney Fish Market opens on Monday, with inadequate public transport and delayed service upgrades hampering access.
While the new site is expected to attract 6 million visitors each year – double that of the old site – it provides the same 400 parking spaces. A $30 million ferry wharf for services from Barangaroo, announced in last year’s budget, will not be ready until at least 2027.
The Glebe Society’s Asa Wahlquist and Duncan Leys in front of the new Sydney Fish Market, which will open on Monday.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Glebe Society acting president Duncan Leys said the already crowded light rail could not support the expected increase in visitor numbers.
“It’s difficult to see how it won’t lead to much, much more congestion,” he said.
Transport for NSW is spruiking public transport as the best option for visitors to the new market. Anticipating additional demand, it has announced 150 extra weekly services for the L1 Dulwich Hill light rail line, to run on evenings, weekends and public holidays.
But locals say these services will not bring people to the market in the numbers predicted.
Fellow Glebe Society member Asa Wahlquist said customers swamping local street parking was a major concern for residents.
“It’s a big thing that people always talk to me about,” Wahlquist said. “It’s very hard to find parking anyway.”
With the market’s change in location, the old Fish Market light rail stop has been renamed Bank Street, as Wentworth Park light rail stop is now closer to the market’s entrance.
The Wentworth Park stop will receive a $40 million accessibility upgrade, including new lifts and ramps, and improved lighting and signage.
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But Leys and Wahlquist questioned why the works had not been started, let alone completed, before the new market’s opening, also raising concerns about traffic congestion on Bridge Road, the main thoroughfare for the new site, which they said would be amplified by the number of visitors crossing the street to get to the market from the light rail stop.
Bridge Road is a 40km/h street that becomes single-lane west of the market.
With most of the day’s catch delivered by truck, Leys and Wahlquist said morning-peak-hour traffic jams were inevitable. They also feared collisions between pedestrians and cyclists on the road’s shared path.
“We’re particularly concerned now that there are e-bikes and e-scooters,” Wahlquist said.
“People will be … having lunch there, maybe having a couple of glasses of wine [and] stepping out onto the footpath,” she said. “It’s an accident waiting to happen.”
Wahlquist said the society had repeatedly put their concerns to Transport for NSW but had not received answers.
“How are you going to manage the transport when the roads are jammed … all the way up to Broadway and Parramatta Road?”
She said plans for residential towers on the old market site would place more pressure on already inadequate public transport.
“The modern philosophy of building seems to be not providing very much parking to encourage people to use public transport,” Wahlquist said. “Well, where’s the public transport?”
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Transport for NSW did not respond to questions about why the light rail upgrades had not been completed before the site opened.
A spokesperson said it was investing $70 million to “improve public transport and active transport connections to the new site”, including the ferry service.
A Sydney Fish Market spokesperson said the site was designed to “prioritise public transport, walkability and sustainability”.
“Parking is available on site, but the market is well-connected by light rail, buses, walking and cycling infrastructure,” they said.
The new market connects to the Blackwattle Bay foreshore walk, which links Rozelle Bay to Woolloomooloo through a 15km pathway.
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